


Vangelis

by smalltrolven



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, Curtain Fic, Declarations Of Love, Established Relationship, M/M, Season 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 20:57:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8462698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smalltrolven/pseuds/smalltrolven
Summary: “This is your retirement, you dolt,” were the words that begin the Winchesters’ surprise retirement. A gift to prove the validity of the news that reminded the brothers of a long ago trip to Heaven, and the Cleveland Botanical Garden.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sam and Dean are not my characters, the rest is only my words. This fic came from a posting a while back on tumblr that read: “ _Your next challenge is to pick up the closest book to you, turn to page number 27, and use the fifth sentence on that page as the first sentence of a Drabble. Whichever pairing you believe fits best.”_ Mine was from the incredible sci-fi novel, _Ultima_ by Stephen Baxter. Written for the 2016 [Wincest Big Bang](http://wincestbigbang.livejournal.com). Set during the beginning part of season 11. Thank you so much to [](http://amberdreams.livejournal.com/profile)[amberdreams](http://amberdreams.livejournal.com/) for the gorgeous art!

 

“ ** _This_** is your retirement, you dolt,” said the pleasant, but unfamiliar man’s voice coming from somewhere much too close to be comfortable.

Dean looked up at the speaker, who was standing near Sam’s empty side of the bed. His immediate assumption was that the dude was an angel of some kind. Not one he’d ever met, and now that the sleep was clearing from his eyes, he could see he was unlike any angel he’d ever known. The guy was wearing a suit, but a much older style than what the angels normally wore. Dean sat up slowly, leaning back against the headboard, one hand creeping under the pillow where the angel sword lay.

“Not sure where you’re from, dude but hunters don’t get retirement. And why the hell are you in my room? And why are you calling me a dolt?”

“I was told it was likely that you would be difficult,” the angel (or whatever the hell he was) continued, he adjusted the lapels on his immaculate suit and smoothed back his oiled black hair.

“That supposed to hurt my feelings or something?” Dean challenged, hand tightening around the hilt of the angel sword. He was feeling more than a little annoyed by now.  He had been taking a very nice nap on their bed, _thankyouverymuch_. And where was Sam anyway? He should have been back from doing the library/shopping run by now.

“Your brother is fine, do not worry, Dean Winchester,” the angel assured him, gesturing back down the hallway towards the garage entrance.

“That’s probably the worst thing you could possibly say to me, if you know us or our story at all. What you guys have done to him…” Dean trailed off, letting go of the angel sword and bringing his hands together to crack his knuckles in preparation to fruitlessly punch another rock-hard angel jaw.

The angel watched Dean’s hands move with an unreadable smile. “Sam should be returning shortly. But you said, ‘you guys?’ Oh goodness, you must think that I am an angel, do you not? Sorry to disappoint you but I am most certainly not one, and if I was, I could not have gotten in here past all that warding you’ve got on this place. Well done and kudos on that score.”

“So what are you then, and what the hell are you even doing in my home?” Dean asked, standing up and crossing his arms across his chest and glad that he was at least wearing his pajama bottoms. Staring him down over the bed between them, he discovered he was much taller than the thing who claimed he wasn’t an angel. “How the hell did you even get in here?”

“Shall we just say, I have been here before? I have been most terribly rude, please let me introduce myself. I am an entity who has long been associated with the Men of Letters. Our association was always fruitful for both sides.”

“Still not hearing what you are, or what your name is, or why you’re in my home without an invitation, buddy,” Dean growled.

“I am what you would call a daemon, I am a messenger between the mortal and the divine. I have treated with the Men of Letters and their predecessor organizations for quite a long time now. I am not allowed to give you my true name of course, but you may call me Vangelis.” The daemon sketched out a perfunctory yet polite bow.

“Still sounds like an angel name to me,” Dean said, still skeptical of anything angel-related.

“I assure you, I am not an angel. Think of me as a herald of sorts, I bring you the good news, that you are to think of this as your official first day of retirement. And that means no more hunting from this day forth.”

“Only way I’d believe you, is…well I can’t think of one. Anything or anyone coming in here, uninvited like you, telling me that has to have a reason. And I hunt supernatural things, you’re saying I’m all of a sudden just not supposed to do that. And you are one of ‘em. So tell me why should I hang it all up just on your say-so?”

“As I said before, I am a messenger between the mortal world and the divine. And you should know that I was specifically and enthusiastically invited just this morning. By your brother, Samuel, who I believe is quite competently carrying on the Men of Letters tradition.”

“Well, you’re going to have to wait until he gets back to talk to him.”

“Yes, of course, of course, I know that, but I wanted to use this time to tell you something before he returns. The message about this being your retirement is not meant just for you. It is meant for you and your brother. Hear me, and hear me well, Dean Winchester. _This_ is your retirement.”

“Can you possibly be a little bit more specific, Vangelis?” Dean asked through gritted teeth, this guy was the most exasperating dude he’d had to deal with in a long time. And where the hell was Sam anyway?

“Yes, I will try to describe the message as well as I am able. This time, that is to say today, in this place, specifically your home right here and this person, referring to your brother, Samuel Winchester of course, all of this is your retirement, beginning as of this very moment in fact.”

“What are you, the I-now-pronounce-you-retired fairy or something?”

“No, I am not a fairy, although they are lovely beings. As I said before, I am a daemon. I travel between the divine realms and the mortal ones. My calling is to bring messages and items back and forth.”

“So you’re not a demon?” Dean asked, wishing he had a flask of holy water anywhere within reach.

“No, I am not, we daemons have been around far longer than demons have been. And I am  most certainly not the result of a corrupted human soul.”

“Where is this message coming from exactly? Can you pin it down a little for me?” Dean asked with a frustrated sigh. Getting anything from this guy was like extracting Sam from a used bookstore.

Vangelis paused before answering, he looked up to the right as if checking an internal list. “The sender of this message prefers to remain anonymous at this time, but I assure you, I only carry messages sent with the best of intentions.”

Dean’s mind scrambled through all the possibilities of who could be sending a message like this to them. “You ever met Death before?”

“Yes, of course, he was a fine fellow, and he is greatly missed. I did not share his culinary tastes but he was one of the most competent beings I knew. But the message is not from him, good guess though. Dean, I am sorry but I will not be able to play this type of guessing game with you.”

Dean cast about for something else he could ask. It seemed that finding out the ‘who’ wasn’t possible, how about the ‘why’ of it then? It was worth a try. He felt sort of silly stalling for time like this. “You said my brother invited you here? What’s, uh that about?”

“Just this morning, he asked for guidance for the future, specifically for your future. To be clear, the two of you, together.”

“I see, so he was praying or doing some kind of ritual then, right? And you got the shit job of coming down here and answering him.”

“I do not consider this a shit job, it is in fact an honor of the highest order for me to finally get the chance to meet the Winchester Brothers. You and your brother are being granted this notice of retirement in recognition of your service.”

“Our service? Our service to who?”

“Whom,” Sam corrected, smiling at Dean from the doorway.

Dean rolled his eyes and gestured between the two, “Sammy, this is Vangelis, says he’s a daemon, not a demon, that’s bringing you a message that you asked for this morning. Vangelis, maybe you better start this whole thing over again so that Sam will believe it.”

“Hello, Samuel, it is my greatest pleasure to make your acquaintance. I come in response to your request for guidance for you and your brother’s future together. I have been sent by someone in the divine realms to inform you of your retirement from this day hence.”

“Our retirement? That’s the guidance we need?” Sam asked, looking over at Dean to catch his eye and shrug his shoulders in a matching small motion.

“According to the message I carry, yes, it is indeed. Your brother and this place are your retirement, from this day hence.”

“This message is coming from who now?” Sam asked, hoping to get a little more information to clarify this confounding situation.

“As I said earlier the interested party prefers to remain anonymous. But they are what you would term on the side of _good_.” Vangelis used air quotes as he said the word ‘good’ and smiled at them.

“I’m not sure I can just believe this, even though I guess I asked for it through the ritual. Is there anything beyond the message you can give me?” Sam insisted, guessing that there had to be more to back up this strange pronouncement.

Vangelis reached into the capacious pockets of his suit jacket and pulled out a long, rectangular box and handed it to Sam. “The sender said this was to be left in your care and that you would know I come bearing the truth when you see it.”

Sam accepted the box and read the words burned into the wooden top:

_A Souvenir of Your Visit to ~ The Cleveland Botanical Garden_

There was a small line drawing of a garden enclosed in a dome, carved in thin burned-in lines.  He opened the hinged lid of the box slowly and took out a worn looking pair of hedge trimmers. A piece of paper fell to the floor slowly floating to land near Dean’s feet.

Dean leaned down and scooped it up and read the words out loud, “Your turn to trim the hedges now that you’ll have time.”

“Joshua?” Sam asked, feeling his heart clench at the memory of their shared heaven and all the sorrow it had caused. He met Dean’s eyes reluctantly, his brother’s expression as sad and torn as he felt himself.

Vangelis smiled to hear Sam’s correct answer. “As you have now named him correctly, yes, I can confirm this message is from the angel, Joshua. You may remember, he is still the one being in communication with the deity you refer to as God.”

“But, what about the Darkness? We have to…” Dean stammered, surprised into silence when

Vangelis held up a hand to stop him.

“No, you must accept that the release of the Darkness was necessary to balance the scales. It is therefore no longer your responsibility.”

“But _it is_ our responsibility, we released her, we need to stop her, that’s how we play this game,” Dean insisted, looking over to see Sam nod with him in agreement.

Vangelis shook his head. “No, Dean, you do not. If the Darkness becomes a problem She will be taken care of, it is not your concern. She will not contact you again. To continue using your metaphor, you and your brother are no longer playing the game.”

“How can we just forget she’s out there, doing who knows what?” Dean exclaimed, arms spread wide in frustration.

“There’s no way we can just let this go, it’s our fault she’s loose!” Sam joined him in expressing their united disbelief.

Vangelis paused when he observed the brother’s increasing agitation. He seemed to have a short conversation with himself before speaking again. “I am authorized to administer a touch of forgetting if you require some assistance.”

Sam quickly moved back several steps from Vangelis’ outstretched fingers and shook his head vigorously. “No thanks, my head’s been messed with by angels and demons enough already. I guess I’ll have to believe you, Vangelis.”

“Dean, would you care for…?” Vangelis offered, holding out two fingers towards Dean’s forehead.

Dean stepped back to join his brother and shook his head. “No, I’ll…uh, I can get on board if Sam can.”

“Vangelis, can you take a message back to Joshua from us?” Sam asked.

“Of course, it would be my great pleasure,” Vangelis answered, as he sketched out a slight bow at the waist.

“Give me just a sec to write it out for you,” Sam said, heading over to the desk and pulling out some blank notepaper and a pen from the drawer. Dean stepped behind him and peered over his shoulder to read what Sam was writing.

After a few moments he murmured in Sam’s ear, “You really think he needs to know all that, Sammy?”

Sam finished what he wanted to communicate and turned slightly to look at his brother. “Yes, I do. He might already know it all since he’s an angel, but I just wanted to put it down on paper so that it’s official, for us, and for him.”

_Dear Joshua,_

_The first time, when we met you in Heaven, you told us God wanted us to back off and to remember being in Heaven. And you were right.  We did remember, and it helped us stop the apocalypse from happening. Accepting that we are soul mates was the key to all of it, and if you hadn’t shown us our shared Garden, we might not have believed it. So, thank you for rooting for us like you did._

_This time, your message is that we’re supposed to retire, right now, together, here in the Men of Letters bunker. And we will. We won’t like it, and it will be hard at first, but we swear we will._

_Thank you for your gift of the hedge trimmers. We’ll keep the hedges trimmed until we see you again in the Garden._

_With our sincere thanks,_

_Sam & Dean Winchester_

Sam handed Dean the pen so he could sign the letter, Dean gave him a half-grin and signed with a flourish. Sam folded up the paper and wrote _JOSHUA_ on the outside, and handed it to Vangelis. The daemon accepted the message and tucked in his breast pocket, patting it down and smiling at both of the brothers. He shook hands with them and clapped them on the shoulders.

“With that gentlemen, I will be off. I do hope that you will thoroughly enjoy your retirement.” Vangelis waved exactly once, walked through the doorway and vanished against the brick of the hallway.

Sam blinked a few times at the surprising disappearance of their visitor and then slowly sank down to sit on the edge of the bed. Dean paced back and forth a few times, and stopped by the door, peering up and down the hallway just to be sure he was gone.

“So, how do we get out of this one?” Dean asked, arms crossed, leaning against the doorjamb.

Sam shrugged, looking at his hands for a long moment. He sighed to steady himself and said, “We don’t get out of it, we just swore to it, Dean.”

“You can’t be serious,” Dean said, pushing off the door and stepping in front of Sam.

Sam looked up at his brother’s stern face, and held back a laugh. “This is the first day of our retirement, and as I see it, well it could go a couple different ways. We could spend some time fighting and arguing, maybe do some half-assed research, or you could get in this bed with me right now and show me how we’re going to be spending the rest of our lives together.”

Dean’s face transformed from stern to angry to considering to lustful in the space of a few moments. Sam enjoyed watching his brother go through the cycle of thought processes so quickly. Dean stepped into the vee of Sam’s legs and rested his hands on Sam’s shoulders. He leaned down to kiss Sam, softly at first, then deepening it as Sam responded by wrapping his arms around Dean’s back to pull him in even closer.

Sam began to pull Dean’s legs up around his hips, Dean got the idea and kneed onto the bed, straddling Sam’s lap. Sam put his arms around Dean’s neck and drew him in close enough to kiss up towards the sensitive spot behind his ear. “You know where daemons come from? It’s from Plato, a priestess was teaching Socrates about how Love wasn’t a deity, but was a great daemon. A being that could go between gods and men.”

Dean struggled to form an answer, Sam’s lips always made his brain short-circuit. “So that’s why you called on him? To try and get a message to God?”

Sam was surprised that Dean was still talking at this point. “It was a pretty vague prayer that I found deep in the files on the Ancient Greeks, and I honestly didn’t think it had much chance of working because of my translation, but I gave it a shot this morning before I went out on the shopping run.”

“He got here pretty quickly then. They were probably waiting for us to call. But it would have been nice to know there was a possibility of a divine visitor.”

“Sorry, I should have said something. But I didn’t…well, I wasn’t sure that what I was asking was even something that had an answer.”

“What’d you ask anyway?” Dean managed to ask, momentarily stopping Sam’s kisses.

“Huh, I was wondering if you’d ask me that. I…uh, well I asked for help in figuring out what we were supposed to do from here on out. I sure wasn’t expecting the answer to be that we should retire.”

“At least they specified it was us retiring together.”

“Why? You think I’d let you hunt on your own?” Sam asked, bouncing Dean a little on his lap.

“Let me? Like it’s even up to you,” Dean said with agitation, almost shoving off of Sam.

“Yeah, yeah, it is, Dean,” Sam said, turning abruptly and dumping Dean off his lap onto the bed.

“No, it’s not. Besides, I always thought you’d want to go your own way when we finally hung it up. Go back to school or something,” Dean said to the ceiling.

Sam crossed his legs and leaned his back against the headboard. “Hold on, hold on. Where did you get this idea from? You really think that I’d want to just ditch you as soon as we quit hunting?”

Dean shrank into himself as he answered quietly, “Yeah, I mean it wasn’t out of nowhere. I couldn’t forget that not too long ago when you thought I was dead, you were getting emails from colleges about applying. And after all the shit I’ve pulled lately…”

“Well, thanks a lot! Now I feel like the world’s biggest chump assuming we were in this for the long haul,” Sam said, bringing his legs up and hugging them tightly.

“We are, or…I uh, I hoped we are. I just couldn’t picture you wanting to stick around if you didn’t have to hunt with me. You could, I don’t know, meet somebody, have a life…” Dean trailed off as he saw Sam’s face crumple.

“What is it exactly you think we’re doing here, Dean?”

“Uh, having a life?” Dean finally answered, meeting Sam’s eyes with a pleading look.

“Yeah, yeah we are. And maybe we’ve never come right out and said it out loud like we should have but I wouldn’t ever want anyone else, not when I’ve got you. I mean, I do….have you, right?” Sam asked.

“Uh huh, yeah, of course,” Dean answered quickly, feeling his face heat up at hearing Sam’s words.

“And unless you’re trying to say you’d rather try and find someone else to spend your retirement years with, you’re kinda stuck with me, dude.”

“I don’t want anyone else, Sammy, you know that, right?” Dean asked with a desperate edge to his voice.

Sam sighed and shook his head, mouth turned down into a frown. “No, I don’t know that, Dean, not really, not always. Way back when we first started all this, it used to drive me crazy wondering when you’d figure out you could have anyone else in the world and that you didn’t have to settle for me. All those waitresses you’d flirt with, all those victims who wanted to ‘thank you’. But then, you’d look at me this certain way, and I’d know, you were choosing me again. And it would be all right for a while. But then you say stuff like this, and I…”

Dean sat up then, joining Sam in sitting up against the headboard. He put one hand on Sam’s knee. “I do, Sammy, I choose you, over and over again. And I’m sure as hell not settling for anything by making that choice. Believe me, I know about the jealous thing, I mean, I do it too, about you being able to go out there and make a life for yourself. I’m jealous that you have the potential to do that, because I’ve always needed you so damn much. It’s…I can’t say it right.”

“But I want to do that _with you_ , Dean, make a life for ourselves, together. If you want to that is.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty much the only thing I want, that and to keep Baby running and learn how to make apple pie as good as that one we had in Missouri last year.”

“That’s your big retirement plan, huh?” Sam teased.

“Well shit, Sam, I never really bothered to have a plan. Didn’t seem worth dwelling on, never thought it’d be anything but lights out on a job for me. I know you probably have been planning this forever, mister I-see-a-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel.”

“Pardon me for being optimistic. Yeah, I did picture us having a life after hunting. I mean, I always hoped we’d get here at some point, but I thought we’d be older, definitely a lot more grey hair involved. Maybe one of us injured in some way so that we couldn’t physically do the job anymore. More recently, it’s involved something vague about using the Men of Letters files and all the lore we know to help people who are still out there hunting.”

“Sounds pretty damn perfect to me,” Dean said with that slow-moving devastating smile Sam always loved.

“Think we can do it? Just retire, boom, like this?” Sam asked, a fervent new hope clawing to make its way out of his chest.

“Like you said, it’s going to be hard at first. I tell you, Sammy, I’ve been tired for so long doing this job, I don’t know if I’ll really miss it at this point.”

“You told me that a long time ago, back when you were going to sit there and watch me die of Croatoan, remember?”

“Pssht, that was a few years ago, wasn’t it? God, a whole lot’s happened since then, and I’m even more tired. It’s all gotten so much bigger year after year.”

“Understatement of the century there, dude. But yeah, we can do it, it’s well past time, I’ve been feeling like we’re tempting fate. And like Vangelis said, this order to retire was a recognition of our service. Our service to who, though? I still want to know.”

“I believe that should be whom, Sam.”

Sam elbowed him in the ribs as he pulled off his shirts. “Stop correcting my grammar and get in this damn bed already.”

“So impatient, we’re retired now, we’ve got all the time in the world.”

Sam laid back on the pillows and pretended to snore loudly. Dean laughed and quickly stripped off his clothes, diving on top of Sam just to hear his surprised squawk.

Sam laughed once he had them flipped, and Dean’s arms pinned above his head. “All this talking, I never thought we’d get to the good part.”

“Sammy, I figured out a long time ago that talking is kinda your version of foreplay.”

Sam didn’t say anything in answer to that. There wasn’t much he needed to say. He took Dean’s mouth again, kissing him until the only sounds Dean could make were those breathless groans and whines that meant he was leaving what happened next all up to him. Eventually, Sam took them both in hand and stroked them the rest of the way to full hardness. He let himself stop thinking about retirement or their strange visitor and just reveled in the way his brother gave himself over like this to him. Still, after all these years it meant everything and it was also the hottest thing on the planet.

He sat back on his heels and looked down at Dean, spread out in front of him like the best sort of all-you-can-eat buffet and that gave him the idea he’d been looking for. He lowered himself over Dean so their bodies were aligned but he held himself just above the point where their skin actually touched. He used his lips and teeth and tongue to map out his brother, recalling that the inside of Dean’s knees were one of those soft places that would make him visibly shake. Sam spent what seemed like hours teasing and suckling Dean’s nipples until he was gasping and barely holding back from begging.

Once again, Sam made himself take the time to sit back on his heels and look down at the changes he’d caused, Dean was red in the face and panting, his eyes were black with unchecked desire and his body temporarily tattooed all over with Sam’s possessive marks. Dean had been so good for him, letting him take his time, it was obvious he wanted to be taken the rest of the way apart. Sam smiled at him and dove down quickly to take Dean’s hard cock deep down his throat at the same time he plunged two lubed fingers into his hole. Dean’s whole body seized up at the feeling of being penetrated and engulfed in the wet heat of Sam’s mouth and throat. Dean came with a sudden jerk that made him almost lift off the bed. Sam smiled with satisfaction and let the come drip out of his mouth down Dean’s sensitive balls, he followed it all with his tongue, scooping it up and licking him clean, pushing it all into his hole. Sam moved his fingers in and out slowly, feeling the contractions lessen as Dean came down from his orgasm.

For a third time, Sam sat back up on his heels, and pulled Dean up onto his lap, entering him smoothly. Dean sprawled boneless yet still perfect for a moment, then wrapped his legs around Sam’s lower back, digging his own heels into those perfectly made spots above Sam’s hipbones. Sam plunged inside even deeper, taking his brother over, filling him completely, pinching at his nipples until Dean whined with something near too-much pain. Sam stroked Dean back to hardness and then positioned himself to hit the spot that would bring Dean the most pleasure on every other thrust. Dean lifted his hips up to make the angle just right and pushed himself up into Sam, pulling Sam deeper inside each time. They lost track of who was who then, the pleasure cycled between them as their thrusts became more frantic. Dean reached towards Sam’s hands, flailing until he had their fingers laced firmly together where Sam held his hips as they both shuddered together in a crashing moment of bliss.

 


	2. Chapter 2

~~**~~

Dean woke up because he felt Sam leaving the bed, he reached out towards him in the darkness but Sam just hushed him and told him to go back to sleep. He tried for a while, but then he got curious, so he pushed up out of bed and wrapped his grey robe on and shuffled his feet around until he found his slippers under the desk. He padded down the hall towards Sam’s room and heard his voice. At first he thought he was talking to someone and worried that Vangelis had returned, but then he realized Sam was just praying. He crept a little closer to hear what he was praying about.

“Joshua, I don’t know if you can hear me or not. But thank you. And if you can, tell God thank you from me too. I knew we were done, it was feeling like we’d gone further than we were supposed to, maybe even pushing our luck, but I never knew how I’d get Dean to stop hunting without some catastrophic injury. And you’ve done it, in the best way possible. Thank you for letting us be together. It’s the best reward, the only reward I would have ever wanted.”

Dean made some footsteps-approaching-stealthily sounds hopefully covering up his shameless eavesdropping and tapped on Sam’s door. “Sammy, you okay?”

“Yeah, I was just looking at these,” Sam said, turning the garden shears over in his hands.

“Wonder if he actually used those in ‘The Garden’ or not,” Dean mused, putting a hand on Sam’s shoulder.

Sam turned them over several times and pointed out a few dings and dents in the shiny surface. “Looks like they’ve been used, but I couldn’t say where.”

“I’m going to make some coffee, you want some?” Dean asked, taking his hand off Sam’s shoulder and heading towards the door.

“Wait, uh…I have something for you,” Sam said, scooping something up out of his desk drawer. He stood with one clenched hand. “But I’m not sure if you want it or not. If you don’t, you well…you don’t have to—“ Sam rambled.

Dean grabbed Sam’s clenched fist. “If it’s from you, of course I want it.”

Sam looked at him, seeming to measure whether he was kidding or not and slowly unfolded his hand.

Seeing it there on Sam’s palm, winking at him like it had missed him, his old amulet, it was the best and worst feeling all at once. A contradictory flood of remorse and joy hit him all at once and he felt his knees almost buckle under the strain. But he held onto Sam’s hand, steadied himself and looked up into his brother’s eyes. Fear and worry changed into hope and joy on a steady cycle and Dean couldn’t take seeing Sam worry like that.

“You really want to give this to me again?”

“I do. I really do, Dean,” Sam said, serious as the vow he’d made yesterday to the daemon.

“Even after I threw it away, and all the shitty stuff I’ve pulled since then?” Dean asked, his stomach swooping with dread at the thought of all of the unforgivable things he’d done to Sam since throwing away this necklace.

“Yes, especially because of all of that, so you know I forgive you. And that you are who I choose, who I will always choose,” Sam said, echoing Dean’s words back to him.

Dean closed Sam’s fist back up around the amulet and held it with his own hand, stared up at Sam and tried as hard as he could not to tear up. A few escaped but no one said anything, he breathed as deeply as he could for a few moments to give himself time to come up with a good response. “I don’t know that I deserve this, Sammy. It means everything to me that you even still have it. But I don’t want us to be…hold on, I’ll be right back.” Dean dropped Sam’s hand and dashed out the door, and sped down the hall to his room. He pulled out a small metal lockbox from under his bed and got it open, pulling out something small and ran back down the hall to Sam.

Sam was sitting on his bed, pulled into a small hunched shape like he was trying to take up as little space in the world as possible. His shoulders were shaking, but there were no sounds. Dean approached the bed slowly and sat next to Sam.

“Can I see it again?” Dean asked when Sam finally looked up at him with a tear-streaked face.

Sam held his hand out and opened his fingers, the amulet lay in his palm, amidst some blood where Sam had clenched it hard enough to break open his skin. Dean took the amulet and kissed the places where Sam had cut himself, licking gently at the small wounds. Sam shivered at the feeling.

“Can I finish what I was saying, before I ran out like the world’s worst asshole?” Dean asked.

Sam didn’t say anything, just nodded and looked even more mournful if that was possible.

“Sammy, I’m sorry that you took this wrong. What I was starting to say was that I didn’t want us to be unequal with this, I wanted to give you something too. So that you have a reminder that you are who I choose, who I will always choose.” Dean opened his own fist then and his old silver ring lay there on his palm. 

Sam reached out and took the ring from Dean and slipped it onto his left hand ring finger. Then he took the amulet from Dean who ducked his head. Sam slid the leather cord around his neck and settled it back where it belonged. Sam touched the amulet briefly like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Dean held Sam’s hand and rubbed his thumb over the ring back and forth. “This was Mom’s, it was a ring her Dad gave her when she turned sixteen. He said it was an old family heirloom.”

“I didn’t know that, or that you still had it,” Sam said.

“Guess we both have a couple of secrets left,” Dean said, touching his amulet with a wonder-filled smile.

“That’ll give us something to do in our retirement,” Sam said.

“I’m really sorry, that I made you doubt me just now,” Dean said.

“I wasn’t doubting you, I was pretty sure I’d just screwed everything up again,” Sam said.

“No, I’m pretty sure you made it even better. So where are we going on our honeymoon, huh?”

“Honeymoon?” Sam asked, eyebrows gone sky-high in surprise.

“Well, I feel like we kinda got hitched, what with the angel and daemon pronouncements that we’re each other’s retirement. Trading jewelry, and all that, you know, the usual.”

“Guess it better be Cleveland then I guess,” Sam said.

“Botanical Garden?” Dean asked.

“And the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” Sam said.

“I’ll book us a honeymoon suite somewhere nice, we can do it up right,” Dean said.

“You don’t need to do that stuff just to humor me, call it a honeymoon, or pretend we’re married,” Sam said.

“Why not? I thought for sure you’d like that kinda thing,” Dean asked.

“I guess, it’s just weird,” Sam said with a shrug that Dean was pretty sure meant Sam really did like it a whole lot but wasn’t cool with Dean giving him a hard time about it.

“Weirder than a daemon coming in here and pronouncing us retired?” Dean teased.

“No, that was definitely up there. Okay, Mr. Winchester, let’s do this,” Sam said, clapping his hands and turning away from Dean.

“What, now Mr. Winchester?” Dean asked.

“After we come home from Cleveland, I want to plant a garden so I can actually use these things,” Sam said, scooping up the garden shears from the desk. He waved them in Dean’s direction, light winking off the silver ring he now wore.

Dean felt his face practically break apart from the smile he couldn’t stop, his beautiful brother there, waving everything he’d ever wanted right in front of him. He stepped forward and pulled Sam into an embrace, kissing him until they were both breathless. Dean took the shears from Sam and laid them back on the desk and pulled his brother back into bed. Their first day of retirement wasn’t over quite yet.

~The End~  
  
Epilogue:


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